Dr. Christopher J. Ferguson, from the Department of Behavioral Sciences, at Texas A&M International University is on today’s program to talk to us about video game violence.

Professor Ferguson has been researching the effects violent video games (VVG’s) have on gamers and he’s come up with some interesting conclusions.

You don’t normally see publications from clinical psychologists getting space on video game news blogs, but Professor Ferguson’s recent paper, Blazing Angels or Resident Evil? Can Violent Video Games Be a Force for Good?, published in the Review of General Psychology, was much talked about in the mainstream gaming press.

The paper talks about the potential for positive effects to come out of playing video games, something that Dr. Ferguson thinks has been missing in both the scientific and the popular debate on the subject.

Not only does Professor Ferguson dispute many of the preconceived notions about VVG's and their effects on gamers, he feels that there are actually many positive effects of gaming:

• Visuospatial cognition is improved.
• Social Involvement is apparently boosted.
• VVGs can hold our attention and therefore could be used as vehicles of learning.

These are just some of the subjects we talk about in this webcast:

• Do violent video games, like FPS shooters, cause real-world violence?
• Will you become desensitized by playing FPS?
• Are there warning signs that someone will become violent after playing violent video games?

Listen to the cast and learn to correct some of society's misconceptions about our favorite hobby.

Click here to give us your comments on this cast: Comments

Additional links:

1. Professor Ferguson's homepage: www.tamiu.edu/~cferguson

His many publications: http://www.tamiu.edu/~cferguson/pubs.html

another site dedicated to his research: http://christopher.ferguson.socialpsychology.org/ 

2. The Markey study: http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/gpr-14-2-82.pdf

3. Example of erroneous mainstream reporting of the linkage between VVG and real-world violence

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/4/17/171751.shtml

4. PCWorld Discussion with Prof. Ferguson: Violence in Games